Posted on 05/31/2017 5:45:47 AM PDT by Kaslin
Venezuela descends into chaos. Its people, once the wealthiest in Latin America, starve. Even The New York Times runs headlines like "Dying Infants and No Medicine."
My Venezuelan-born friend Kenny says his relatives are speaking differently. Cousins who once answered "Fine" or "Good" when asked, "How are you?" now say, "We're eating."
Eating is a big deal in the country that's given birth to jokes about a "Venezuelan diet." A survey by three universities found 75 percent of Venezuelans lost an average 19 pounds this year.
So are American celebrities who championed Venezuela's "people's revolution" embarrassed? Will they admit they were wrong?
"No," says linguist and political writer Noam Chomsky. "I was right."
Sigh.
Actor Sean Penn met with Hugo Chavez several times and claimed Chavez did "incredible things for the 80 percent of the people that are very poor."
Oliver Stone made a film that fawned over Chavez and Latin American socialism. Chavez joined Stone in Venice for the film's premiere.
Michael Moore praised Chavez for eliminating "75 percent of extreme poverty."
Hello?! In Venezuela, Chavez and his successor, Nicolas Maduro, created extreme poverty.
Chomsky, whose anti-capitalist teachings have inspired millions of American college students, praised Chavez's "sharp poverty reduction, probably the greatest in the Americas." Chavez returned the compliment by holding up Chomsky's book during a speech at the U.N., making it a best-seller.
Is Chomsky embarrassed by that today? "No," he wrote me. He praised Chavez "in 2006. Here's the situation as of two years later." He linked to a 2008 article by a writer of Oliver Stone's movie who said, "Venezuela has seen a remarkable reduction in poverty."
I asked him, "Should you now say to the students who've learned from you, 'Socialism, in practice, often wrecks people's lives'?" Chomsky replied, "I never described Chavez's state capitalist government as 'socialist' or even hinted at such an absurdity. It was quite remote from socialism. Private capitalism remained ... Capitalists were free to undermine the economy in all sorts of ways, like massive export of capital."
What? Capitalists "undermine the economy" by fleeing?
I showed Chomsky's email to Marian Tupy, editor of HumanProgress.org. I like his response: "If lack of private capitalism -- I assume he means total abolition of private enterprise and most private property -- is his definition of socialism, then only North Korea and Kampuchea qualify."
Tupy also asks how Chomsky thinks "capitalists sabotaged the economy by taking money out if capitalists are superfluous to a functioning economy."
Good questions. Chomsky's arguments are absurd.
As Tupy wrote elsewhere about another socialist fool, "As much as I would like to enjoy rubbing (his) nose in his own mind-bending stupidity, I cannot rejoice, for I know that Venezuela's descent into chaos -- hyperinflation, empty shops, out-of-control violence and the collapse of basic public services -- will not be the last time we hear of a collapsing socialist economy. More countries will refuse to learn from history and give socialism 'a go.' 'Useful idiots,' to use Lenin's words ... will sing socialism's praises until the last light goes out."
I fear he's right. This love for state planning is especially outrageous today because anyone who pays attention knows what does work: market capitalism.
Socialism failed in Angola, Benin, Cambodia, China, Congo, Cuba, Ethiopia, Laos, Mongolia, Mozambique, North Korea, Poland, Somalia, the Soviet Union, Vietnam and now Venezuela. We are yet to experience the blessed event of seeing one socialist country succeed.
Yet during the same years, capitalism brought prosperity to Hong Kong, Singapore, New Zealand, most of Western Europe, and years ago, to a mostly poor and undeveloped country we now call America.
In 1973, when Chile abandoned its short-lived experiment with socialism and embraced capitalism, Chilean income was 36 percent that of Venezuela. Today, Chileans are 51 percent richer than Venezuelans. Chilean incomes rose by 228 percent. Venezuelans became 21 percent poorer.
Venezuela has greater oil reserves than Saudi Arabia. But because some people believe socialism is the answer to inequality, Venezuelans starve.
What should Venezuela do once the tyrant falls?
It should do what Dubai and Hong Kong did, and what America should do next with Guantanamo Bay and Puerto Rico: create "prosperity zones." I'll explain in my next column.
Isn’t Chomsky the dog on Everybody Loves Raymond?
Oops sorry, never mind. I had in mind a thinking mammal.
“How is he any different than the guy who invented the Transistor and was a big racist Schokly - oh the transistor was probably the the most significant invention of all time and Noam theories on linguistics are interesting. Oh my bad MIT employed him too”
I think you are referring to William Shockley, who received his Ph.D. from MIT but, to the best of my knowledge, was never employed there post-Ph.D. He was an engineering professor at Stanford the last 12 or 13 years of his career.
Unfort., only if/when the People revolt (surprise), would there be any chance of retribution.
Any sort of heads-up would see the mass exodus of these (now rich) ‘Central Planer Soclialists’ before they can be brought to any sort of justice.
Just wonder how many need suffer/die before that event occurs?
Now that is an interesting topic of debate / discussion!
Socialism is a misleading name for governmentism.Socialists systematically and cynically subvert a society, claiming that it is a simple matter for government make society better. See, for example, LBJs boast of a Great Society.
documents how easy it was for government officials with that attitude to make things dramatically worse.
- Losing Ground:
- American Social Policy, 1950-1980
- Charles MurraySocialists claim that society and government are, or at least should be, synonymous.
SOME writers have so confounded society with government, as to leave little or no distinction between them; whereas they are not only different, but have different origins. Society is produced by our wants, and government by our wickedness; the former promotes our happiness POSITIVELY by uniting our affections, the latter NEGATIVELY by restraining our vices. The one encourages intercourse, the other creates distinctions. The first is a patron, the last a punisher.I, Pencil is an article written in 1958 by Leonard E. Read. The burden of the article is how diffuse are the inputs to make a simple item like a pencil. Of course a particular company - Eberhard Faber, in the example instance - made the pencil. But Mr. Eberhard and Mr. Faber did not simply speak the pencil into existence; the company has to have buildings housing machinery, and workers to operate the machines. But beyond that, the Eberhard Faber workers have to have food, shelter, and normal amenities - including those required by their families.Society in every state is a blessing, but Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil . . . - Thomas Paine, Common Sense (1776)
And the same is true of the vendors who supply Eberhard Faber with the machinery they require, and all the obvious materials - wood, graphite, rubber, and the ferrule material and the enamel. All those vendors have their own equipment, workers, and supply chain. And in all cases the workers need food, shelter, and normal amenities. So although the pencil certainly does not exist without Eberhard Faber, society works together to make pencils - and everything else.
So, you didn't build that? Somebody else made that happen? Yes - but that somebody else was not government. The somebody was more like everybody - mostly very indirectly.
Government planning is merely interference in societys subtle workings by people who have nowhere near the competence needed to make such large decisions and be responsible for them. It is nothing more than the irresponsible separation of responsibility from authority, in violation of the first principle of good management. Improvement in efficiency via government planning is a paper tiger.
Hey, let's be fair. Poverty is only extreme if *some* people experience it. If everyone (except for a handful of privileged elites) experiences poverty, then it is no longer "extreme"--it becomes normal.
Socialists do not claim Angola, Benin, Cambodia, and so on as successes. (Instead, they use Sweden.)
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